Tech & Biz

Warning over US Voting Machines

by Jordan Yerman | October 22, 2008 at 06:42 am

307 views | 12 Recommendations | 4 comments

As Election Day draws nigh, old voting-machine fears are rearing their ugly heads once more. Long story short, many believe these machines to still be as broken as they were in 2000 and 2004, and most testing confirms this fear. Of course, the machines' manufacturers deny these claims whilst jealously guarding their source code.

We're keeping an eye on this, since stories are appearing rather rapidly: Check out th estory below, as well as our Voting Issues Channel.

Long queues are likely at polling stations on 4 November, Pew researchers say, and both parties are hiring lawyers in anticipation of challenges.

Voters have already had long waits in some states where early voting is under way, like North Carolina and Florida.

It comes despite efforts to improve the system after problems in 2000 and 2004.

Nearly 10,000 electronic voting machines ready for use in New Jersey polling places in the upcoming presidential election are highly vulnerable to tampering, according to a Princeton University report made public Friday.

Sequoia, the provider of the above machines, claim that their own tests are to be believed, and not anyone else's. Even the reports that find the Sequoia machines hackable within eight minutes.

The 2008 election "has the potential to combine a record turnout with an insufficient number of poll workers and a voting system still in flux," the report by the non-partisan Pew group says.

By "still in flux", do they mean "broken but nobody who is able wants to fix it"? After all, that is the case.

At least three voters in Jackson County, West Virginia, complained that when they tried to cast a vote for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, the machine recorded a check in the box for Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

ES&S, the voting-software/terminal company who, along with Sequoia and Premier (formerly Diebold), provides voting machines for the precinct above, blamed the user. They claim that all those users somehow screwed up on the interface that displays only three or four choices. As someone who does quite a bit of testing, I can state confidently that the above does not sound like user error.

However, do the providers of this equipment want to get their stuff fixed before the big day? Surprisingly, they don't. In other words, your company's flagship product is getting rolled out on the world stage, and you know ahead of time that it doesn't work, but you don't want to fix it. Furthermore, you don't want anyone to even know it's broken.

No wonder people are shouting "conspiracy".

Potential headache: Of the 24 states using voting machines, eight reportedly have no requirement to stock emergency paper ballots in case of machine failures, and 10 states don't have proper procedures to make sure every vote is counted.

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Roberto Alvarez-Galloso

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 07:16 on October 22nd, 2008

jordan, I like this story. It's good stuff. The electoral process itself is corrupted with or without voting machines. The US Mainstream Media covers the Republicans and Democrats and excludes the other candidates. The US Mainstream Media have been agitating the Republicans and Democrats against Alternative Parties with accusations of racism, and classism.

Gus Neto (not verified)

at 11:54 on October 22nd, 2008

Why don't you just use the Brazilian system?

It's quick and reliable.

E-voting's been going on in Brazil since 1996 and there's never been a major problem.

Rhonda J Mangus

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 12:05 on October 22nd, 2008

jordan, I like this story. It's good stuff.

RayBanBro66

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 12:56 on October 22nd, 2008

jordan, I like this story. It's good stuff. I vote in EVERY election and the county I vote in recently switched to these new electronic machines. Grant it, they're easy to use, but I did kind of look at it with a "crooked eye" wandering if my vote really registered for the candidate I chose. (watch any old Clint Eastwood spaghetti western to visualize the eyes...close up and kind of squinted) And that was in an "off " year election . Imagine how I'm gonna look at it when I go to the polls in 14 days, with all the other dirty tactics being used.